Scandium is a chemical element; it has symbol Sc and atomic number 21. It is a silvery-white metallic d-block element. Historically, it has been classified as a rare-earth element, together with yttrium and the lanthanides.

Atomic Structure:

The nucleus consists of 21 protons (red) and 24 neutrons (blue). 21 electrons (green) bind to the nucleus, successively occupying available electron shells (rings).

Scandium, a silvery-white metal with surprising strength and lightness, boasts a history intertwined with both chance and scientific deduction. Its story begins in the late 19th century with the Swedish chemist Lars Fredrik Nilson. While meticulously working with rare-earth minerals, Nilson stumbled upon an unknown element hidden within. Through careful analysis, he identified its unique spectral signature, marking the official discovery of scandium in 1879.

Intriguingly, the existence of scandium wasn't entirely a surprise. Just a decade earlier, the visionary chemist Dmitri Mendeleev, guided by the periodic table's predictive power, had postulated the existence of an element with properties eerily similar to scandium. He even dubbed it "eka-boron," meaning "below boron" in its place on the table. When Nilson's discovery came to light, the scientific community marveled at the remarkable alignment between prediction and reality, cementing the power of the periodic table as a roadmap for exploring the unseen.

Scandium is mainly used for research purposes. It has, however, great potential because it has almost as low a density as aluminium and a much higher melting point. An aluminium-scandium alloy has been used in Russian MIG fighter planes, high-end bicycle frames and baseball bats.

Some of the benefits of using scandium are:

Scandium, a silver-white metallic element, might be rare, but it pops up in surprising places! It's found in trace amounts in many minerals, but commercially, it's usually extracted as a byproduct from mining other metals like titanium and uranium. While Madagascar and Scandinavia boast rare minerals with concentrated scandium, thortveitite being the champion, most comes from reprocessing waste materials from other mining operations.

Scandium, a silvery-white metal, boasts several unique properties that set it apart. It's remarkably lightweight, yet exceptionally strong, making it an attractive candidate for high-performance alloys used in airplanes and even baseball bats. Scandium also readily conducts electricity and heat, making it useful in some types of lighting and potential future applications like fuel cells. But perhaps its most interesting property is its rarity. Despite being the 23rd most abundant element in Earth's crust, it's scattered in trace amounts, making its extraction a fascinating scientific and engineering challenge.